


i feel a change comin' on

by santiagoswagger



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Humor, One Shot, Pre-show Peraltiago, Stakeout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 08:45:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12429177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santiagoswagger/pseuds/santiagoswagger
Summary: Early in their partnership, Jake and Amy dance around the subject of their personal lives on a late-night stakeout.





	i feel a change comin' on

Jake sighed as he stared at the street beyond his dusty windshield. Running a hand through his already mussed hair, he reclined further back in his faux leather seat. His back cracked with relief at the movement; he’d been sitting still for so long in this tiny box of a car. He had endured this stakeout for four hours already, which would normally be fine, but he was beginning to run out of the sour candies he’d brought with him. He’d been feeling extra snacky tonight. His back cracking was the most interesting thing to happen in the last hour at least. His car companion visibly winced at the sound of the crack ringing through the air, cutting through smirk wide on his face, even as his bleary eyes struggled to focus on her in the dim lighting.

“Did that turn you on, Santiago?” She rolled her eyes in response, just the reaction he had been hoping for. “I can do it again…with other body parts too.” His eyebrows wiggled up and down suggestively as he stared her down. Amy was having none of it; she’d heard better, even from him. The stakeout was taking a lot out of both of them. It had been a last-minute assignment from the Captain and they’d both had to give up Saturday night plans. Jake had whined about it for the first hour they’d been sequestered in the car. Time had trickled by slowly and she was reaching the end of her Peralta patience quota for the day.

“I will never understand why women willingly choose to go out with you,” she said with disdain, her eyes darting from the windshield back to him. “You have the maturity of a golden retriever puppy.”

Jake gasped, his eyes twinkling with delight. He only teased her because he knew she’d give it right back to him. He had never met a worthier adversary than Amy Santiago, even if he did think she was a giant nerd. “That hurts, Santiago!” She rolled her eyes again. “But the joke’s on you because golden retrievers are the best dogs – everyone agrees! Besides, the ladies love Jake.” Amy chose to ignore him, grabbing a pair of binoculars from her bag in the backseat so she could keep her hands busy. The perp they were looking for, a high-level Russian drug dealer, was supposed to be hiding out in the nondescript apartment building Jake and Amy were now parked in front of. She trained her binoculars on some of the building’s lit windows, hoping to spot their guy so this godforsaken stakeout could come to a close and she could get home to her sweatpants and a bottle of red wine.

Jake took the opportunity to stare at her surreptitiously from the corner of his eye, something he had gotten pretty good at in his years on the force. He had the hardest time reading Amy and it frustrated him to no end; he wasn’t sure if it was because it made him question his skills as a detective or if he truly wanted to know what was going on in Santiago’s brain for another reason entirely. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

Since Amy had joined the team at the ninety-ninth precinct six months ago, she and Jake had struck up a friendly rivalry. Their first meeting had been pleasant enough and Jake had been excited to get some new blood on the force, and Charles’ weird and awkward ‘wedding bells’ comment aside, Jake knew from the personnel file he’d stolen from McGinley’s desk before her arrival that Amy was smart and had maintained a great arrest record at her last precinct. All of his hopes for a new partner in solving crime were dashed, however, when Amy looked through the files crowding his desk that first day and found a new lead on Jake’s coldest case. That new lead led to an arrest by the end of the week, something that had eluded Jake for the past two years. Rosa hadn’t failed to point that fact out when they went to Shaw’s to celebrate Amy’s success, Jake would even say she’d done so gleefully. A fire had begun to burn within Jake, his sense of competition igniting in a quest for revenge. The next day, he sat down at his desk across from Amy’s and proposed a bet: the first detective to find a new lead on a cold case by the end of the week would have their paperwork done by the other for a month. Amy had agreed readily, her left eyebrow raised in challenge. Jake had won that bet, delighted when Amy threw a pen at him out of shock and anger at the loss.

Thus, a great rivalry was born. The bets hadn’t stopped since and Jake kind of hoped they never did.

Jake was lost in thought, scanning the area around the car for signs of their perp. He reached for his thermos to take a sip of coffee. He was mid-swallow when Amy cleared her throat. “Speaking of ladies…” Jake nearly spit out his coffee, swallowing quickly and trying to ignore the burning in his throat as he turned to look at his partner. She was still staring out of her binoculars at the apartment building, her face unreadable. Jake and Amy never talked about their personal lives, especially at work. They knew a bit about each other’s families, of course, and she would occasionally mention a detail about a date when they were all out at the bar, but Amy was a true professional and refused to talk about sex with her coworkers. Jake had made it his mission to get her to talk about it with him ever since their first stakeout. “Didn’t you have a date last night? With that girl from the bar?”

Her tone was casual but Jake detected something else there. It sounded to him like she was being careful with her words. “Yeah, Jessica. The nurse.”

Amy whipped her head over in his direction at the word ‘nurse’, a playful gleam in her eye Jake had become all too familiar with. Her ponytail swung in time with her head and she lowered her binoculars to her lap. The perp could wait. “A nurse? Isn’t that every straight white guy’s biggest wet dream? Did you finally get to play doctor, Peralta?” There was that tone again. It was teasing, but there was a new aggression in her voice Jake wasn’t used to hearing. He was, however, delighted that she had used the phrase ‘wet dream.’

Jake laughed awkwardly, unsure of how to navigate this topic with his partner. They were friends, or at least friendly, and friends talked about their relationships. He couldn’t help but feel like they were quietly crossing an invisible threshold. “Eh, it was just dinner. She got pretty drunk and I had to put her in a cab at 9 pm. We didn’t even make it to dessert. I don’t think there’ll be a second date.”

Amy laughed out loud. She wasn’t totally surprised the date had been a dud: Jake was pretty open about his dating life, and she saw the women he flirted with at Shaw’s when the squad went out for drinks every Friday. For a guy who loved challenges at work, he seemed to have no patience for them in his personal life. Not that she was interested in his personal life. Obviously. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a Jessica that could hold her liquor. That was your first mistake, Peralta. My brother Anton dated a girl named Jessica once. She only had two glasses of punch at the Santiago New Year’s Eve party before she started doing the world’s worst McConaughey impression. My abuela was not amused.”

Jake’s eyes bugged out as he laughed along with her. He loved adding more personal details to his armory – it was more ammunition to tease her with. “One, we are definitely going to talk more about the Santiago New Year’s Eve party soon.” Amy smirked and rolled her eyes in response. “Two, are you jealous, Santiago?”

Amy sputtered with her whole body, her binoculars flying to the floor of the passenger seat with the convulsion. “What? No! Why would I be jealous of Jessica?”

Jake leaned back in his seat, hands above his head like he was lounging in a pool chair and not in his musty car by the docks in Brooklyn. “Oh, Santiago. I get it. You’re probably wondering what it would be like to date the best detective in the NYPD.” He fixed her with his trademark Peralta smolder. “If you’re thinking it would blow your mind, you’re right.”

Amy snorted loudly. “I can’t date myself, Peralta.” He gasped at the comeback, clutching his hand to his heart through his stakeout hoodie. “Besides, I can get dates of my own. I had one last night too, in fact.”

Well, this was a surprise to Jake. He liked to think of Amy as a nun; a nerdy, doily-obsessed nun. The sensible, neutral-colored pantsuits she wore to work every day certainly helped fuel this image. He hesitated a moment before responding: “Oh, did you? Santiago, it doesn’t count if other people can’t see him.” He defaulted to bantering with her to cover his momentary lapse. It wasn’t that Jake didn’t think Amy was desirable to men, even he knew she was attractive. It had to be shock that she was volunteering this information willingly (at work, no less!) that had thrown Jake off. Luckily for him, she didn’t seem to pick up on his pause, indignant over his accusation that her date had been an invisible friend.

She scrunched up her face in annoyance and rolled her eyes. “Ugh, shut up, Peralta! He’s a real person.” She crossed her arms and huffed. Her patience quota was really running low. They were approaching hour five of the stakeout with no perp in sight and her legs were starting to cramp from sitting stiffly in Jake’s disgusting car for so long. “I’m very capable of getting real dates with real men.” She bent down to pick up her forgotten binoculars from the floor, pointing them back at the apartment building. She was determined not to give Jake the satisfaction of looking at him. “Maybe you’re the jealous one.”

Her words filled the air between them, hitting Jake like a pile of bricks. Jake, jealous of other men, over Amy Santiago? Nerdy, rule-following, pantsuit-wearing, grammar Nazi, annoying Amy Santiago? The Amy Santiago that drove him nuts and solved his cases? That Amy Santiago?

Nope. She was straight-up insane.

As Jake opened his mouth in indignation to tell her exactly that, Amy spotted movement in one of the lit windows of the apartment building. “Peralta, I found our guy!”

They moved quickly into action, their legs desperate to escape the confines of the car. Within ten minutes, the perp had been collared and read his rights, and the relief team arrived to take him to the precinct to be processed so Amy and Jake could finally go home. As Jake handed the dealer over to his fellow officers, Amy came up behind him. She looked almost contrite and her arms were hanging awkwardly at her sides, like she didn’t know what to do with them. “You know I was just kidding about you being jealous, right? And I don’t think all girls named Jessica are lightweights – I’m sure she’s a great girl.”

Wisps from Amy’s ponytail had come loose from their confines during the arrest and she pushed them back behind her ear, Jake’s eyes following the movements of her hands. Amy never apologized to him and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. “You’re a good guy, Jake. Any girl would be lucky to go out with you.” She smiled at him, and he returned it.

“Thanks, Santiago. You’re a good guy too.” She laughed and the tension that had seemed to linger between them before dissipated at the sound. As they walked back to Jake’s car so he could take her to her own ride, he was struck with the sudden realization that she had never called him by his first name before.  

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, friends! This is my first B99 fic and I'm really pumped about it! The plot is based on a story I read that Melissa and Andy improvised a scene for her audition in which Jake and Amy asked about each other's dates while trying not to make it obvious why they were so interested. 
> 
> In my mind, it's the beginning of their partnership. The rivalry exists but they’re still feeling out each other’s boundaries, learning what makes the other tick. Their sexual tension/banter hasn’t yet been fully established but it's starting to get there. I hope I did a good job of balancing that. 
> 
> Anywho, I would love to hear what you think in the comments! I'm also on tumblr @santiagoswagger - come say hi!


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